This is the official suggestion for Combat System Damage. Your suggestion will help determine how the combat system will work

*The suggestion will continue as long as needed

After finishing our inventory and weapon effects, we're designing a more advanced combat system that will define how a weapon will damage a target. Since this system is as important as any other feature, we're looking for your opinion and suggestions so that we'll hit the mark.

Here's how the new combat system works:

Armor rating and armor integrityMost creature in Legends of Ellaria has an armor rating and an armor integrity. Before calculating any damage, the armor rating is calculated based on the integrity of the armor. For instance, if you have an armor of 16, with an armor integrity of 30 out of 60, your actual armor rating is 8 (50% integrity).

Physical damage vs armor and armor integrityAny weapon (except for some magic effects) has a physical damage. The physical damage is calculated against the armor, and needs to be higher than the armor in order to cause damage to it's target. For instance, if your armor is 8 and you received a damage of 5, you won't suffer any damage.

However, every damage that your armor absorbs will lower your armor integrity, which degrades your armor and makes it more ineffective with each blow. For instance, if you have an armor of 16, with an armor integrity of 30 out of 60, and you received a physical damage of 10, then your armor will only absorb 8 points of damage (50% current integrity of the 16 armor rating). You will then receive a -2 health and a -8 armor integrity (22 out of 60), and will now have an armor rating of 6 instead of 8.

* Depending on your character level, armor integrity slowly regenerates over time

"Ignore armor" effectMost piercing weapons will have a smaller damage, but will have an "ignore armor" effect. The ignore armor effect ignores some of your armor without causing any damage to your armor or to your helth. For instance, if a weapon has 5 damage and 6 "ignore armor", and you have an armor of 8, then 2 points of damage will be absorbed by your armor, and your health will drop by 3.* The ignore armor doesn't damage any of your health or your armor integrity.

Fire, Frost and magic effectsOnce the physical damage is calculated, other effects may damage you:

Fire damage - ignores half of your armor for damage calculations

Frost damage - any damage that penetrates your armor is doubled

Magic damage - ignores all of your armor

Although these effects are more useful than a regular physical damage, they have the following disadvantages:

Weapons that holds these effects are rare and expensive

Magic projectiles that holds these effects don't usually do physical damage

None of these effects drops your armor integrity(no, fire damage will not melt an armor )

Then:- The ignore armor will drop your armor rating from 12 to 7- The physical damage will not penetrate, but will drop your armor from 7 to 2, and inflict 5 points of damage to your armor integrity - The fire damage will ignore half of your armor (one point), and will do a damage of 4 to your health.

With this in mind, blunt weapons will do more physical damage but will have less armor piercing. Arrows will have more "ignore armor" than actual physical damage, and swords will have a balance between armor piercing and damage.

We will appreciate any suggestion or feedback on this topic. Since this suggestion is also a discussion, you can post any comment as long as it's related to this topic.

I feel the integrity as you've explained is a needless figure? For the first example explaining 50% integrity etc. wouldn't it just be a clearer and more attractive item stat to just have 8 armour instead of 2 figures and then doing the math? This is under the assumption there is no further mechanic to it than what was mentioned.

example #2 I feel "tank" characters would be "nerfed" from this as they will be hit more often and thus their armour which is meant to be their saving grace, would turn to dust. Whilst a lighter character would actually have more effective armour due to less repetitive hits. Perhaps a high-end heavy armour skill to reduce this decay on armour integrity?

I feel if you are going to implement armour integrity then make piecing as you've suggested, by-passing armour, but I suggest a % figure rather than what can become a confusing figure later on. I feel if an item can't be understood immediately, then you're adding unnecessary tasks and labour. For example, if your example just says ignores 80% enemy armour value. It'd be more immediately understood as well as it's worth compared to comparing 2 different stats to determine effective damage. It'd also have the same conclusion stat wise as you've used.

I'd also suggest a blunt type that would then damage integrity more so than health, eventually breaking a heavy armour user open like a egg shell.

Perhaps change "magic" to arcane, otherwise why isn't the "magic fire" magic damage? maybe even call it "rift" damage! with your suggestion for magic, fire is essentially always weakened. Frost would roughly work at nearly always at 100% damage and "magic" would always be full. This would mean fire would have a disadvantage against armour opponents and no advantage to unarmoured. It'd simply be the considerable worse of the 3.

NitoMurray wrote:I feel the integrity as you've explained is a needless figure? For the first example explaining 50% integrity etc. wouldn't it just be a clearer and more attractive item stat to just have 8 armour instead of 2 figures and then doing the math? This is under the assumption there is no further mechanic to it than what was mentioned.

example #2 I feel "tank" characters would be "nerfed" from this as they will be hit more often and thus their armour which is meant to be their saving grace, would turn to dust. Whilst a lighter character would actually have more effective armour due to less repetitive hits. Perhaps a high-end heavy armour skill to reduce this decay on armour integrity?

I feel if you are going to implement armour integrity then make piecing as you've suggested, by-passing armour, but I suggest a % figure rather than what can become a confusing figure later on. I feel if an item can't be understood immediately, then you're adding unnecessary tasks and labour. For example, if your example just says ignores 80% enemy armour value. It'd be more immediately understood as well as it's worth compared to comparing 2 different stats to determine effective damage. It'd also have the same conclusion stat wise as you've used.

I'd also suggest a blunt type that would then damage integrity more so than health, eventually breaking a heavy armour user open like a egg shell.

Perhaps change "magic" to arcane, otherwise why isn't the "magic fire" magic damage? maybe even call it "rift" damage! with your suggestion for magic, fire is essentially always weakened. Frost would roughly work at nearly always at 100% damage and "magic" would always be full. This would mean fire would have a disadvantage against armour opponents and no advantage to unarmoured. It'd simply be the considerable worse of the 3.

These are of course my own opinions and nothing else

The Magic damage to rift / arcane damage sounds like a good idea, since we do have a whole lore around the rift.

About the % instead of the armor integrity, we did noticed that most games has a percentage damage rather than an actual damage, so a regular sword would kill a knight wearing a full body armor in 20 hits instead of 5. That's not a very realistic thing, neither is intuitive or fair, since we plan to make full body armors rare and expensive.

The concept is that armor integrity is larger than the armor rating, so an armor rating of 5 will have about 50 armor integrity (absorb up to 50 points of damage), but the main point is that by the time that the armor absorbed all the damage, it's wearer is allready dead, since each blow will lower the hit points. In other words, a "tank" character will have a huge armor with a huge integrity, and it will take a very long time to "nerf" it.

For the more armored character, a blunt weapon will damage integrity faster, since it's non - piercing damage will do the full extend of damage to the armor, while a sword will pierce it and do less damage to the integrity on the long run.

We did add an armor integrity to the HUD (attached image). Basically after a few minutes of game play, our testers realised that bad things happens when the shield drops

NitoMurray wrote:Wouldn't a rogue character with more mobility gain more from this mechanic though than a less mobile warrior?

Most games has a slower "tank" character and faster light infantry characters, as well as other "rock scissor paper" characters. As the leader of your clan, you'll be able to define and recruit ranged infantry (bowmen and siege weapons), spear men, horsemen and light / heavy infantry, where each one of these types of soldier will be better against another specific type.

A heavily armored character is substantially slower and more armored than faster characters, but will be able to absorb a massive amount of damage. For instance, if you'll be attacked by a pack of wolves and wear full body armor, you would literally kill half of the pack before you lose any damage to your health, since most of the damage will go towards the armor integrity. The only downside to this is that you won't be as fast as another character that wears light armor, and so will be weaker against magicians and other soldiers that shoots ranged weapons in a "shoot and run" tactic.

A rouge character won't have any more benefits than the heavily armored at all. it all depends on your game style and how much you balance your character, as well as the skills that you invest in.

If I remember rightly, it was there isn't a class system? So will armours have a weight system to Dark souls where certain thresholds limit mobility more? As my worry stems from moble agility heroes wearing heavy armour and not being impaired for doing so.

NitoMurray wrote:If I remember rightly, it was there isn't a class system? So will armours have a weight system to Dark souls where certain thresholds limit mobility more? As my worry stems from moble agility heroes wearing heavy armour and not being impaired for doing so.

Yup, we forgot to mention, but we implemented a weight system along with the inventory logic, as well as a limit of how many items you can carry (by their stack limitation and slot size in your inventory)

We'll also limit the speed of a character based on weight vs skill, as well as other limitations that result from heavy armor (So it won't be practical for you to wear armor if you're a ninja / archer / mage).This limitation may come after or during the Early Access, since we're focusing on more important features.

The skill system will allow you to pass some of these limitations, and some character builds will enjoy both worlds (at the expense of leveling slower in each of the class). For instance, if you invest in both the warrior and the mage classes, you'll be able to be a balance between speed, close quarters defence and devestating magic projectiles to those pesky fast moving ranged enemies, making you a serious warlock that can fight any type of enemy. Your soldiers, however, will be limited to one class.

NitoMurray wrote:If I remember rightly, it was there isn't a class system? So will armours have a weight system to Dark souls where certain thresholds limit mobility more? As my worry stems from moble agility heroes wearing heavy armour and not being impaired for doing so.

Yup, we forgot to mention, but we implemented a weight system along with the inventory logic, as well as a limit of how many items you can carry (by their stack limitation and slot size in your inventory)

We'll also limit the speed of a character based on weight vs skill, as well as other limitations that result from heavy armor (So it won't be practical for you to wear armor if you're a ninja / archer / mage).This limitation may come after or during the Early Access, since we're focusing on more important features.

The skill system will allow you to pass some of these limitations, and some character builds will enjoy both worlds (at the expense of leveling slower in each of the class). For instance, if you invest in both the warrior and the mage classes, you'll be able to be a balance between speed, close quarters defence and devestating magic projectiles to those pesky fast moving ranged enemies, making you a serious warlock that can fight any type of enemy. Your soldiers, however, will be limited to one class.

I think that system would be punishing to "tank" people, as mobile heavy armour builds would ultimately get more out of the armour and integrity system explained than a slow moving block. As from what I can understand (I, of course can be misinterpreting), a mobile rogue-ish character will eventually have the same armour skill but with improved mobility. Meaning they get the full effective of the armour rating whilst can use mobility to avoid much of the integrity system. Something a pure-spec tank wouldn't be able to do. Perhaps having flat "can't use magic with...." types of armour such as metals/heavy armour, likewise having mobility skills and such either greatly reduced or "blocked" from use whilst using it? That way, you won't end up with invulnerable turrets of doom (i/e. heavy armour mages that destroyed balance in games like Dragon Age and Dragon's Dogma)?

So for example, in many D&D games. Casters can on occasion wear up to medium armours but doing more so impairs their magic ability. Perhaps having the same system with a % of spell failure and a backfire critical chance increase?

spell failure (spell uses mana but does not cast)

0 - robe/clothing20- light40-medium60/75-heavy

Spell critical failure (spell backfires and blows up in your face)

051525

Using this system, you could also adapt some skills such as Necromancy one's to include a chance of self-harming as that would fit in the theme of it. 2 birds one stone?

NitoMurray wrote:If I remember rightly, it was there isn't a class system? So will armours have a weight system to Dark souls where certain thresholds limit mobility more? As my worry stems from moble agility heroes wearing heavy armour and not being impaired for doing so.

Yup, we forgot to mention, but we implemented a weight system along with the inventory logic, as well as a limit of how many items you can carry (by their stack limitation and slot size in your inventory)

We'll also limit the speed of a character based on weight vs skill, as well as other limitations that result from heavy armor (So it won't be practical for you to wear armor if you're a ninja / archer / mage).This limitation may come after or during the Early Access, since we're focusing on more important features.

The skill system will allow you to pass some of these limitations, and some character builds will enjoy both worlds (at the expense of leveling slower in each of the class). For instance, if you invest in both the warrior and the mage classes, you'll be able to be a balance between speed, close quarters defence and devestating magic projectiles to those pesky fast moving ranged enemies, making you a serious warlock that can fight any type of enemy. Your soldiers, however, will be limited to one class.

I think that system would be punishing to "tank" people, as mobile heavy armour builds would ultimately get more out of the armour and integrity system explained than a slow moving block. As from what I can understand (I, of course can be misinterpreting), a mobile rogue-ish character will eventually have the same armour skill but with improved mobility. Meaning they get the full effective of the armour rating whilst can use mobility to avoid much of the integrity system. Something a pure-spec tank wouldn't be able to do. Perhaps having flat "can't use magic with...." types of armour such as metals/heavy armour, likewise having mobility skills and such either greatly reduced or "blocked" from use whilst using it? That way, you won't end up with invulnerable turrets of doom (i/e. heavy armour mages that destroyed balance in games like Dragon Age and Dragon's Dogma)?

So for example, in many D&D games. Casters can on occasion wear up to medium armours but doing more so impairs their magic ability. Perhaps having the same system with a % of spell failure and a backfire critical chance increase?

spell failure (spell uses mana but does not cast)

0 - robe/clothing20- light40-medium60/75-heavy

Spell critical failure (spell backfires and blows up in your face)

051525

Using this system, you could also adapt some skills such as Necromancy one's to include a chance of self-harming as that would fit in the theme of it. 2 birds one stone?

Yea, we are planning on implementing it. The system goes around the weight, so the more you wear the less effective your spells are. We didn't think about the backfire effect but it may be a good idea.

We actually took an inspiration from the first Never Winter Nights. In that (oldie) game, wearing a medium / heavy armor sets a big limitation to your spells or your ability to cast them. There's also a "warlock" class there, where you can use heavy armor but can't cast epic spells